John
Glube
Who
pays?
By John Glube, © 2004, all rights reserved of Stay Aware, The
Journeyman's Journal
Microsoft has come out in support of Bonded Sender.
But a question needs to be asked. Should the sender of solicited
commercial e-mail, along with senders of transactional or
relationship e-mail and personal e-mail have to pay extra to get
through the gateway filters set up by Internet access services
to stop unsolicited bulk email?
Today, to send solicited commercial e-mail, you have to pay for
Internet access, the costs associated with building a subscriber
base of recipients who have granted affirmative consent, the
costs associated with transmitting the e-mail and ensuring
delivery.
Now, the Internet access services want senders to pay an extra
charge. The cost of being accredited, so the Internet access
service can sort out the difference between what some have
called good e-mail as opposed to bad e-mail.
How did we find ourselves in this situation?
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) argues spam is fraudulent
unsolicited commercial email, while relying upon the right of
commercial free speech to support the sending of unsolicited
commercial email in bulk.
Supporters of this view, like Mr. Ronnie Scelson, (known as the
Cajun spammer) who recently testified before the US Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science & Technology claim the CAN-SPAM
Act of 2003 (CSA) by not banning, but merely regulating how you
can send UCE in bulk, legitimizes this position.
But the justification used by the DMA and supporters is
inherently flawed as gauged against independent standards of
responsible net practice, reflected in the Internet Engineering
Task Force guidelines titled Netiquette, Don't Spew and How To
Advertise Responsibly Using Email.
Internet access services are presently confronted with senders
of unsolicited bulk e-mail flooding the system.
In response, relying upon gateway filters as the first line of
defense, Internet service providers have cranked up the filters.
In turn senders of personal, solicited, transactional or
relationship email are being caught in the cross fire.
Paragraph 8 (c) of the CSA reads:
"(c) NO EFFECT ON POLICIES OF PROVIDERS OF INTERNET ACCESS
SERVICE- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any
effect on the lawfulness or unlawfulness, under any other
provision of law, of the adoption, implementation, or
enforcement by a provider of Internet access service of a policy
of declining to transmit, route, relay, handle, or store certain
types of electronic mail messages."
* By not defining spam as unsolicited commercial email sent in
bulk and then banning the sending of spam, Paragraph 8 (c) of
the CSA allowed Congress to sidestep confronting the right to
commercial free speech argument put forward by the DMA.
* Instead Congress placed in the hands of Internet access services
the opportunity and power to establish and impose responsible
behavior through market self-regulation.
But with the implementation of programs like Bonded Sender,
using criteria which allows for the sending of UCE, are the
Internet access services using this power responsibly?
And what about the practice by Microsoft, Yahoo! and Internet
access services others of selling access to their subscriber
base of free email users to senders of bulk UCE and then
transmitting these messages to their subscriber base for the
advertiser?
Or taking the view held by America Online there only has to be a
'relationship' between the sender and the recipient, so allowing
senders of bulk UCE with implied consent to be white listed
under AOL's guidelines?
* The Congressional committees with responsibility for
commercial oversight have to monitor the policies and technical
measures implemented by the Internet access services to ensure
these do reinforce responsible behavior as gauged against
independent standards.
* Congress also needs to be satisfied:
(i) The plague of e-mailers sending UCE in bulk is brought under
control through market self regulation;
(ii) Any measures taken, while protecting the consumer, ensure
senders of personal email, along with senders of solicited
commercial, transactional and relationship email are treated
fairly, while the competitive playing field remains level;
(iii) The online business community is not placed in the
position of being in breach of other laws, regulations or rules;
and,
(iv) Barriers are not imposed which prevent new entrants, or
drives out existing participants.
This is why Congress included section 10 of the CSA which
requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prepare a variety
of reports for the benefit of the Congressional oversight
committees.
At the same, if market self-regulation does not work, Congress
gave the FTC the authority to fully intervene under the guise of
section 9 of the CSA, which allows for the creation of a
do-not-email-registry system.
With Unsolicited Bulk E-mail senders flooding the 'Net, this
results in continually climbing spam levels.
In turn Internet Service Providers continue to take even more
draconian steps using the existing filtering technology to stem
the tide.
But this results in ever increasing levels of 'collateral
damage.'
Under the CSA, Congress gave the market two years to sort
everything out. But, has time already run out?
The conundrum?
If you support the view the Internet Service Providers should
not use gateway filters of any sort, then who pays for the
continual increases in bandwidth usage, the extra servers and
computing power requirements to deal with UBE?
Can the Internet access services implement authentication
procedures to verify someone is not spoofing or phising without
using content filters?
How does the Internet access service sort the wanted e-mail from
the unwanted e-mail?
Or should this choice be left to the individual consumer? And if
the restraints presently in place against sending bulk UCE which
are causing significant collateral damage are lifted, what
happens?
Is an Elephant released into the system? The Elephant being all
those who would send bulk UCE, but for the existing restraint
system.
Oh sure, Internet access services can establish acceptable use
policies denying access for senders of bulk UCE through their
personal IP address.
But with a T-1 line and direct access to the backbone, what’s to
prevent folks from using this form of access to send CSA
compliant bulk UCE?
The result? Does the existing open email delivery system
collapse?
And without a closed email delivery system in place, were are we
then?
And would sender authentication, without sender accreditation
work to restrain the Elephant?
In the meantime, while all this is being sorted through, how do
we as micro business owners survive and continue to prosper?
Do we simply abandon e-mail as some have suggested?
How do we deliver our newsletter, the sales confirmation or
notice of renewal?
Is it not time for all 3rd party providers of email delivery
services to:
* provide system users with a header on each email sent which
verifies the list, the mailer, the date the recipient subscribed
to the particular list, the recipient's id, the date sent, the
subject line, the filter spam score, an anti-virus check was
done before sending and the mailer from which the email was sent?
* along with the option of RSS or Atom feed delivery?
Is there not a need for an open standard of either a desktop
software download, or preferably a browser link? With access to
the software opening in the user's side bar window?
Should not this open standard ultimately be supported by all the
operating systems and allow the subscriber to access everyone's
feed?
And apart from 3rd party providers of email delivery services
offering customers the option of RSS and Atom feed delivery with
the ability to send a sequential series of messages, is not the
open source code for all of this already on the market?
If this is done, can we not realistically give our customers the
option of choosing how he or she wants their messages delivered?
Does this not allow us to side step the mess as the market sorts
through dealing with the spam problem?
If, at the end of the day, the market elects to go with both:
* Sender authentication (meaning verifying the email is not a
spoof or a phish); and,
* Sender accreditation (meaning the sender meets the appropriate
criteria); and,
This approach is approved of by Congress, can we not set up an
accreditation process which caters to and satisfies the needs of
the micro business community?
John Glube, Publisher and Editor of Stay Aware, The Journeyman's
Journal. To Stay Aware, visit the Zen List Of Marketing Forums
and subscribe today to The Journeyman’s Journal.
http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/mbl.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
According to Busitoolz.com:
Word count 1422 words
Line count 226 lines
Including title, by-line, and resource box.
Formatted to 65 cpl.
Okay, now for the legal and other "stuff":
1. You have a non-exclusive world wide royalty free license to republish this article in any medium, as long as:
* You do not use it any form of UBE, (which automatically terminates your license)
* You republish the article in its entirety, byline and resource box.
2. As a publisher, you may feel obliged to make minor corrections, etc. I do ask you let me know of the desired editorial changes and we can agree upon the changes before you re-publish the article.
John Glube
Toronto, Canada
http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/mbl.html
By John Glube, © 2004, all rights reserved of Stay Aware, The
Journeyman's Journal
Microsoft has come out in support of Bonded Sender.
But a question needs to be asked. Should the sender of solicited
commercial e-mail, along with senders of transactional or
relationship e-mail and personal e-mail have to pay extra to get
through the gateway filters set up by Internet access services
to stop unsolicited bulk email?
Today, to send solicited commercial e-mail, you have to pay for
Internet access, the costs associated with building a subscriber
base of recipients who have granted affirmative consent, the
costs associated with transmitting the e-mail and ensuring
delivery.
Now, the Internet access services want senders to pay an extra
charge. The cost of being accredited, so the Internet access
service can sort out the difference between what some have
called good e-mail as opposed to bad e-mail.
How did we find ourselves in this situation?
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) argues spam is fraudulent
unsolicited commercial email, while relying upon the right of
commercial free speech to support the sending of unsolicited
commercial email in bulk.
Supporters of this view, like Mr. Ronnie Scelson, (known as the
Cajun spammer) who recently testified before the US Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science & Technology claim the CAN-SPAM
Act of 2003 (CSA) by not banning, but merely regulating how you
can send UCE in bulk, legitimizes this position.
But the justification used by the DMA and supporters is
inherently flawed as gauged against independent standards of
responsible net practice, reflected in the Internet Engineering
Task Force guidelines titled Netiquette, Don't Spew and How To
Advertise Responsibly Using Email.
Internet access services are presently confronted with senders
of unsolicited bulk e-mail flooding the system.
In response, relying upon gateway filters as the first line of
defense, Internet service providers have cranked up the filters.
In turn senders of personal, solicited, transactional or
relationship email are being caught in the cross fire.
Paragraph 8 (c) of the CSA reads:
"(c) NO EFFECT ON POLICIES OF PROVIDERS OF INTERNET ACCESS
SERVICE- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any
effect on the lawfulness or unlawfulness, under any other
provision of law, of the adoption, implementation, or
enforcement by a provider of Internet access service of a policy
of declining to transmit, route, relay, handle, or store certain
types of electronic mail messages."
* By not defining spam as unsolicited commercial email sent in
bulk and then banning the sending of spam, Paragraph 8 (c) of
the CSA allowed Congress to sidestep confronting the right to
commercial free speech argument put forward by the DMA.
* Instead Congress placed in the hands of Internet access services
the opportunity and power to establish and impose responsible
behavior through market self-regulation.
But with the implementation of programs like Bonded Sender,
using criteria which allows for the sending of UCE, are the
Internet access services using this power responsibly?
And what about the practice by Microsoft, Yahoo! and Internet
access services others of selling access to their subscriber
base of free email users to senders of bulk UCE and then
transmitting these messages to their subscriber base for the
advertiser?
Or taking the view held by America Online there only has to be a
'relationship' between the sender and the recipient, so allowing
senders of bulk UCE with implied consent to be white listed
under AOL's guidelines?
* The Congressional committees with responsibility for
commercial oversight have to monitor the policies and technical
measures implemented by the Internet access services to ensure
these do reinforce responsible behavior as gauged against
independent standards.
* Congress also needs to be satisfied:
(i) The plague of e-mailers sending UCE in bulk is brought under
control through market self regulation;
(ii) Any measures taken, while protecting the consumer, ensure
senders of personal email, along with senders of solicited
commercial, transactional and relationship email are treated
fairly, while the competitive playing field remains level;
(iii) The online business community is not placed in the
position of being in breach of other laws, regulations or rules;
and,
(iv) Barriers are not imposed which prevent new entrants, or
drives out existing participants.
This is why Congress included section 10 of the CSA which
requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prepare a variety
of reports for the benefit of the Congressional oversight
committees.
At the same, if market self-regulation does not work, Congress
gave the FTC the authority to fully intervene under the guise of
section 9 of the CSA, which allows for the creation of a
do-not-email-registry system.
With Unsolicited Bulk E-mail senders flooding the 'Net, this
results in continually climbing spam levels.
In turn Internet Service Providers continue to take even more
draconian steps using the existing filtering technology to stem
the tide.
But this results in ever increasing levels of 'collateral
damage.'
Under the CSA, Congress gave the market two years to sort
everything out. But, has time already run out?
The conundrum?
If you support the view the Internet Service Providers should
not use gateway filters of any sort, then who pays for the
continual increases in bandwidth usage, the extra servers and
computing power requirements to deal with UBE?
Can the Internet access services implement authentication
procedures to verify someone is not spoofing or phising without
using content filters?
How does the Internet access service sort the wanted e-mail from
the unwanted e-mail?
Or should this choice be left to the individual consumer? And if
the restraints presently in place against sending bulk UCE which
are causing significant collateral damage are lifted, what
happens?
Is an Elephant released into the system? The Elephant being all
those who would send bulk UCE, but for the existing restraint
system.
Oh sure, Internet access services can establish acceptable use
policies denying access for senders of bulk UCE through their
personal IP address.
But with a T-1 line and direct access to the backbone, what’s to
prevent folks from using this form of access to send CSA
compliant bulk UCE?
The result? Does the existing open email delivery system
collapse?
And without a closed email delivery system in place, were are we
then?
And would sender authentication, without sender accreditation
work to restrain the Elephant?
In the meantime, while all this is being sorted through, how do
we as micro business owners survive and continue to prosper?
Do we simply abandon e-mail as some have suggested?
How do we deliver our newsletter, the sales confirmation or
notice of renewal?
Is it not time for all 3rd party providers of email delivery
services to:
* provide system users with a header on each email sent which
verifies the list, the mailer, the date the recipient subscribed
to the particular list, the recipient's id, the date sent, the
subject line, the filter spam score, an anti-virus check was
done before sending and the mailer from which the email was sent?
* along with the option of RSS or Atom feed delivery?
Is there not a need for an open standard of either a desktop
software download, or preferably a browser link? With access to
the software opening in the user's side bar window?
Should not this open standard ultimately be supported by all the
operating systems and allow the subscriber to access everyone's
feed?
And apart from 3rd party providers of email delivery services
offering customers the option of RSS and Atom feed delivery with
the ability to send a sequential series of messages, is not the
open source code for all of this already on the market?
If this is done, can we not realistically give our customers the
option of choosing how he or she wants their messages delivered?
Does this not allow us to side step the mess as the market sorts
through dealing with the spam problem?
If, at the end of the day, the market elects to go with both:
* Sender authentication (meaning verifying the email is not a
spoof or a phish); and,
* Sender accreditation (meaning the sender meets the appropriate
criteria); and,
This approach is approved of by Congress, can we not set up an
accreditation process which caters to and satisfies the needs of
the micro business community?
John Glube, Publisher and Editor of Stay Aware, The Journeyman's
Journal. To Stay Aware, visit the Zen List Of Marketing Forums
and subscribe today to The Journeyman’s Journal.
http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/mbl.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
According to Busitoolz.com:
Word count 1422 words
Line count 226 lines
Including title, by-line, and resource box.
Formatted to 65 cpl.
Okay, now for the legal and other "stuff":
1. You have a non-exclusive world wide royalty free license to republish this article in any medium, as long as:
* You do not use it any form of UBE, (which automatically terminates your license)
* You republish the article in its entirety, byline and resource box.
2. As a publisher, you may feel obliged to make minor corrections, etc. I do ask you let me know of the desired editorial changes and we can agree upon the changes before you re-publish the article.
John Glube
Toronto, Canada
http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/mbl.html